The present invention relates to a reproducing apparatus, a reproduction controlling method, and a program for reproducing a plurality of content data stored on a storage medium.
Recent years have witnessed widespread acceptance of reproducing apparatuses such as portable players each equipped with an internal hard disk drive capable of reproducing digital content data including music contents (simply called contents hereunder) delivered by EMD (electronic music distribution) servers or like sources. This type of reproducing apparatus can accommodate a very large number (e.g., thousands or tens of thousands) of contents thanks to the ever-growing capacity of the internal storage medium.
When the user of such a reproducing apparatus wanted to reproduce contents, it was customary to select the desired contents on a content by content basis. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2001-175624 discloses arrangements whereby a list of a plurality of contents (with content names, reproduction times, etc.) stored in an information processing apparatus acting as a reproducing apparatus is displayed on a screen of that apparatus so that the user may selectively input desired contents one at a time (e.g., by selectively scrolling selection icons on the screen) for reproduction purposes. That is, typical reproducing apparatuses have required that a plurality of contents be first selected from storage before they could be reproduced.